Professor Seema Shah

Abstract

In controlled human infection (CHI) research, researchers intentionally expose people to pathogens to gain scientific insights. Although CHI research has led to key breakthroughs, it remains controversial. This talk will first provide a brief historical overview of CHI research, demonstrating how ethically problematic historical research still casts a shadow on modern studies. The talk will then argue that a lack of understanding of this research contributes to ongoing ethical controversy. It will provide an ethical framework for analysing CHI research, highlighting the importance of distinguishing the ethics of creating a new model for infecting humans from using a model that has already been shown to be safe and reliable. This distinction can do important ethical work and help calibrate the level of research ethics review needed for different kinds of CHI research. The session will close by considering lessons from the analysis of CHI research that can help advance research ethics more generally.

Biography

Seema K. Shah, JD, HEC-C is a Professor of Paediatrics at North Western University Medical School and the Founder’s Board Professor of Medical Ethics at Lurie Children’s Hospital, with a courtesy appointment at Northwestern’s Pritzker School of Law. Prof. Shah is also the Director of Research Ethics and leads the Paediatric Research Ethics and Policy Program at Lurie Children’s Hospital.

Her research focuses on paediatric and global health research ethics, including on ethical and regulatory issues arising in controlled human infection studies and paediatric pandemic preparedness. Professor Shah has served as Chair of an NIH panel on ethical considerations in conducting Zika virus human challenge trials. She is a Hastings Centre Fellow and has been inducted into the Society for Paediatric Research.

Professor Shah currently serves on the National Advisory Allergy and Infectious Disease Council for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, as an expert advisor for the World Health Organization, and as a member of a committee for the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine.